SNL's Vanessa Bayer Is the Funniest Beauty Junkie We Know

Our girl crush on Saturday Night Live’s Vanessa Bayer is well-documented: See exhibits A, B, and C. But we only recently found out that her love of beauty products extends beyond those awesome Miley Cyrus wigs she wears on the show. Here, she talks about her beauty icons, the pressure to look good in the industry, and, yes, Miley too.

Have you always been into beauty? “I was always really into it. I would always use my mom’s makeup and stuff. You know that thing that was really popular in the '80s that was like an eyeshadow palette with a million eyeshadows in it? I remember using that for years. It was probably very expired and old, but I would use it all the time.”

What comedians are your beauty icons? “When Kristen [Wiig] was at the show, I always loved how she looked. I always loved how she dressed, and I loved her hair and makeup. Seeing Tina [Fey] and Amy [Poehler] when they do the Golden Globes—I look up to those women so much in general, that I’m always amazed they can look so great and also be so funny on top of their lives.”

Has being on TV made you freer with your own sense of beauty? “I have a better sense of what people are doing because we have so many great people working on the show, and they’ll try stuff on me, and then I’ll be like, ‘Oh I can try this thing.’ Before doing the show, I just didn’t know all the stuff that was out there and the techniques people were using and the products people were using. Also, being on the show, we get to do so many different characters that sometimes you’ll be doing something with your makeup, and you’ll be like, ‘Oh I kind of love that color,’ and you’ll do something you wouldn’t have normally tried.”

Can you give us an example? “I love wearing fake eyelashes now. Even the woman who does my makeup at the show says she thinks it adds to the comedy because it opens up the eyes and you can see what your face is doing a little bit more. So now whenever they’re doing different characters on me, I’m like, I’d like lashes for this. And now I’ve learned how to do them, which I’m very proud of. Like I can put them on myself. I find the strip a little easier to put on [than individual lashes].”

What other tips from the SNL makeup artists have you picked up along the way? “One trick I picked up was to do concealer and all that stuff after you do your eye makeup in case it falls. I used to do all the face stuff first, like the skin stuff, and then go on to eyeshadow. And they have taught me to do the eyeshadow and then do the concealer under your eyes.”

And what about hair? "I’m pretty wash-and-go the way I do it, but I’ve learned that if I use a curling iron I can actually make it look neat and not like I just woke up. I’ve really only learned to use a curling iron since I’ve been at the show. I just thought I had to have hair that looks messy. But that’s not necessarily the case."

Are there things you’ve learned about hair and makeup from playing certain characters, like Miley Cyrus? “It’s interesting because there are things about my face and Miley’s that are similar, but we actually have really different face shapes. When I wear the [short hair] wig with the hair down, it does not look as much like her as it does with it up Eyebrows are big thing too. When I’m doing an impression, some people have really prominent eyebrows, and it really helps you to look like them. Or they don’t have prominent eyebrows, or whatever it is.”

Vanessa Bayer as her SNL Miley character introducing the real Miley before THAT VMA performance.

Switching gears a bit, do you feel pressure to look good in the industry? "It doesn’t stress me out too much. It’s something everyone is conscious of, but the pressure and the rules are changing slowly a little bit. There are a lot of different types of women who are successful now, and it’s not just extremely thin and beautiful women, it’s women of all different sizes and all different looks. I think that’s a really good thing. For me, I just want to feel good about how I look when I’m doing stuff, and I try and do as good as I can do given the situation."

So why do you think comedians often make themselves look more unattractive to get a laugh? "A lot of comedy comes from very relatable things and insecurities, and not feeling like you look great is a really relatable thing."

One last thing: Do you have any beauty pet peeves? “Lipstick always gets in my teeth. I think the way my mouth is and the way my teeth are, lipstick just goes straight for my teeth, so that’s kind of an annoying thing.”